Y'know, when I first met Daughter, it was the middle of winter in Chongqing, and she, like all the kids in the SWI, had some kind of upper respiratory tract infection, which I promptly caught and which promptly developed into pneumonia in both of us.

And ever since then, every time I get a cold, it seems to go straight for my lungs. I feel a little bit like Frodo Baggins at the end of Lord of the Rings with the shrapnel from the cursed blade in his chest. Only, well, not magical.

And My Cinematic Spouse says I sound like Marlon Brando in The Godfather.

On this, the day of Sam and Rosie's wedding, you come and ask me this thing? Kiss my ring. To bind... more

10 Reasons Not to Hit Your Kid.

I'm staunchly undecided on the whole spanking thing, but some of the science is hard to argue with.

Madonna, you are not helping. Are you?

From the Toronto Star:

As for the charge that she is using and abusing her wealth and power to procure a baby, one might point out that: a) there has been no proof she greased official palms to get the kid; b) if she adopted the baby and left town without donating money to children's causes in her new son's home town, there'd be... more

Chrysanthemums, flower and foliage.

We're pulling up rapidly on Halloween, which means, to those of us that care, that we're also pulling up even more rapidly on the Double Ninth Festival, which is on October 30th this year. Traditionally, this is a good day to put some chrysanthemums in your house (and drink ... more

Book Review: Made in China by Deborah Nash

You know what kids need to learn as soon as they're reading? They need to learn about footnotes.

This is the book that teaches them about footnotes.

It tells, as most children's books do, a pretty simple story: a paper butterfly, left by a child in a park, is trying to get home. The butterfly asks a big paper dragon in the sky for help, and the dragon says, in essence, I'll give you a hand as soon as you answer this question: "What was made in China... more

And the brain bone is connected to... anyone? anyone?

It's been a while since I surfed around some of the blogs. Oddly, a theme seems to be emerging.

* Adoptive mom Julia Sweeney thinks ethics and comparitive religion should be taught in public schools (which is an idea I quite like, and seems to have been popping up a bit lately).

* Meanwhile, linguist ex-pat ... more

Moon Festival = Success!. Made some hongshao fish (used tilapia, and fiddled with two recipes), and everyone raved. Because it tasted so darn good.

The only thing that could make fried food taste better, after all, is frying it AGAIN.

Daughter also appreciated the coloring and the stories, and has now added inquiries about Chang Er's current status to her inventory of... more

Things Daughter screams repeatedly during tantrums, in order of upsettingness to me:

I don't want to be alone. Don't leave me here in my room. I'm hurting. I'm hurting. My throat hurts. I want my puppies. I want my blanket. Daddy. Daddy. Daddy. Can I please have my puppies?

Things that seem to bring on tantrums:

Spending too much time playing vigorously with untamed cousins. Drinking soda (at cousins' house). ... more

I just heard about this Leonard Pitts column about race and self-image that seems like, well, something more to think about. He's a Miami Herald columnist, and a really good writer (although I don't read him as regularly as I once did), and he was just writing about an unsettling experiment done for a film.

The column in question was about black people and images of black people in the media, and how much public image -- popular culture -- affects the way people think about themselves.

He was inspired by a 17-year-old named Kiri Davis who made a short film called... more

I really should just get a "politics" category to stick these things in, but hey, I never really expected to be watching politicians who say in public that people who aren't white aren't really Americans.

Chinese shadow puppets, Qianlong set, 1780

Yet here we are.

So. Katherine "Katherine... more